Heartland

from the guardian:



The new exams are accused of 'dumbing down'. But how well would you do?

Quiz: Twenty-first century science GCSE exam papers

The controversial new GCSE science papers, which feature multiple choice questions, have been accused of 'dumbing down' the subject. But how well could you do on the paper?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/qui ... ience-quiz



my results:

You scored 8 out of a possible 8
You rated: Alpha quiz-taker

shamefully easy, most of them. and i haven't studied any sciences since i was 14 (22 years ago!)

7 out of 8. Missed the last one.

I got 6 out of 8.

But I think the answer I gave for q1 is as valid as what it says is the "correct" answer. And none of the answers for q6 is quite right.

But remember the multiple choice questions are on the foundation paper, you can only get an A-C grade if you take the higher paper too.

8 but i think mini PiB could get 4-5 using common sense

Hot damn - 8/8! Which explains how I managed B/C in Physics/Chemistry 20-some years ago. Mind you, the disconnect in those days between the frankly weedy GCSEs ("repeat what we tell you") and well'ard A levels ("you need to think for yourself" - they hadn't dumbed them down by that point because they didn't know what effect the GCSEs would have - was immense - I suddenly discovered that I had to work as opposed to coasting through exams on my good looks and charm (both of which were hopelessly inadequate to the task! )

I loved science classes. Sadly, my LD in math(s) utterly ruined everything from biology to astronomy. Unfair!

i was the second year to sit the GCSEs after they were introduced (1989) and they were much harder than that

having said that, as mf points out those questions were taken from the 'easy' exam that the kids who arent going to get any A grades sit, where the best result you can get, even with 100%, is a C

just after i left school they merged all the sciences into one for GCSE, so no more physics, chemistry & biology and hello 'general science'... i remember all the teachers complaining that they were going to end up dumbing the subject down and make it an even harder transition from GCSE science to A level physics etc

markfiend wrote:I got 6 out of 8.

But I think the answer I gave for q1 is as valid as what it says is the "correct" answer. And none of the answers for q6 is quite right.

Same here. Q1 have two possible answers because of the way the question is asked eg not specific enough. Missed the last one because I really did not know and I had to guess.

Not bad after all, off to school again!

IZ.

Quiff Boy wrote:i was the second year to sit the GCSEs after they were introduced (1989) and they were much harder than that

having said that, as mf points out those questions were taken from the 'easy' exam that the kids who arent going to get any A grades sit, where the best result you can get, even with 100%, is a C

just after i left school they merged all the sciences into one for GCSE, so no more physics, chemistry & biology and hello 'general science'... i remember all the teachers complaining that they were going to end up dumbing the subject down and make it an even harder transition from GCSE science to A level physics etc

And they made it even worse than that, believe it or not. They had "general science", which was compulsory, and could at best get you a Grade C, and "Advanced Science", which could net you an "A/B" but was listed under "options". Unfortunately, you couldn't take Art and "Advanced Science" , so a load of us who were decent at Science but had arty leanings were frozen out.

I read somewhere that a lot of private schools in England are beginning to ignore GCSE/A-levels in favour of the International Baccalaureate. I wish my school had done that for History, I might have learned more than the NUT's political bias.

8 out of 8, a couple were educated guesses though.

You scored 8 out of a possible 8

You rated: Alpha quiz-taker

Thank goodness, I really should have known the answers even though I didn't take science at school but I feel relieved at completing this. They did A-Level mathematics recently and I failed miserably

I got thrown out for cheating

Quiff Boy wrote:just after i left school they merged all the sciences into one for GCSE, so no more physics, chemistry & biology and hello 'general science'... i remember all the teachers complaining that they were going to end up dumbing the subject down and make it an even harder transition from GCSE science to A level physics etc

Thank goodness separate science survived in my school. Double Award (2 GCSEs worth of 3 sciences) seems to the be the standard these days, though

Got 8 on 8, but I honestly couldn't have told you some of the answers without prompting - and that's having taken the 3 at GCSE 4 years ago and A Level Physics two later. My Biology lets me down

Question 1 is just bad paper setting, though...